Software Project Organization

Software project organization is the series of activities under the project planning phase which includes:

-Defining the project organization structure
-Defining the roles and responsibilities
-Defining the stakeholders' involvement
-Defining the escalation mechanism
-Defining a communication plan

Project organization structure:

The Org structure of the project describes the line of authority across various roles and relations of the project with other support functions. Various diagrams, charts, and other notions are used to define the authority and reporting structure that every role has to exercise.

Roles and responsibilities:

Defining the roles and responsibilities across the team, resources, stakeholders, and various other departments to which the project may interact like HR, Admin, Finance, etc. Every role has a specific set of responsibilities for instance:

Role	Responsibilities
Sr. Project Manager/Practice Head/Department Head/Group Manager	Sanction the budget Conduct project status review periodically Perform risk mitigation activities Handle critical issue escalation & resolution Manage resources Make decision related to cost
Project Lead/Manager	Planning, Scheduling, and Monitoring project planning parameters such as Schedule, effort, task, risks, issues, constraints, commitments, etc. Escalating critical issues Overall execution of the project Participate in identifying alternate solutions and selecting best solutions using DAR form as per the project plan Coordinate and ensure CM activities are performed in the project Conduct CM audit as per CM plan Participate in SQA Audits as an Auditee to provide process compliance status to SQA/Auditor Gather, understand and analyze client requirements, Review BRS, SRS, detailed design & other technical artifacts Test Plan Prepare project status reports on a periodic basis (as per project schedule) Plan for project measurement by referring to organizational measurement guidelines and track the actual values of matrices against the plan. Identify corrective/preventive actions as necessary and track them to closure PL - Perform code reviews and update RTM as required
Developer/Development team	Maintain timesheet regularly Understand the project scope and requirements Participate in project review meetings Raise issues to TL / PL Prepare unit test cases/Code Source code management in SVN/ Code Reviews Perform unit testing, integration & system testing Defect Fixing & Analysis Prepare release notes and manage changes Participate in audits Participate in DAR meetings.
Configuration Controller	Create project repository in the version control system, like SVN, GIT, etc. Create a backup of Configuration Items Help to ensure correct creation of work products from the Configuration Library Allow usage of the documents by giving access rights to different folders to relevant Stakeholders Participate in CM audit and track all reported observations to closure
Tester/Test Team	Prepare test plan Obtain approval on the test plan from PM Prepare system test cases Obtain approval on system test cases Execute test cases and record defects in JIRA Maintain test results & test completion report Testing sign off
HR Team	Providing soft skills training Resource recruitment
Network Team	Providing Hardware and Software to the team Facilitate the procurement of hardware and software for the project team

Defining the stakeholders' involvement:

Based on the identified project activities, the involvement of every project participant/stakeholder in every phase of the project is planned. The action items and desired output of every project activity are determined, along with the responsible stakeholder in every phase of the project.

Phase	Action item	Stakeholder	Output
Project startup/initiation	To allocate the hardware and software resources To arrange the required training	Network Training Function	Email Training Request Form
Project Planning	To Prepare the project plan which include the Configuration Management plan, Risk Management plan and Quality Management Plan To Prepare the Effort Estimation To Prepare the schedule and re-estimate the effort as per the current requirements of client To review the Project plan, estimation To prepare Test Plan	PL PM SQA QA Lead	Project Plan Doc Estimation Sheet Project Schedule Project Plan Review Checklist, Defect List Test Plan
Requirement Analysis	To prepare Business Requirement Specifications and system requirements and define the scope of project To review the system requirements To prepare the requirement traceability matrix	PL PM Client Team members	SRS BRS RTM
Design	To define the system architecture, Detailed design To review the Architecture and Detail Design document To update the RTM	PL PM	Architecture and Detailed Design document Requirements Traceability Matrix
Development and Unit testing	Application Programming Code Review	PL Team member	Source Code Code Review document
System Testing	Execute System test Cases Log Defects	QA Team	System Tested Product Defect List
Delivery	Prepare and share Release Notes	PL	Release notes Delivery Notes Build

Defining the escalation mechanism

An escalation mechanism is a formulation of strategies to triage varied categories of issues and describes the time intervals (in days/hrs) depending on project SOW/ customer agreement, at which the escalation should be done to the next level hierarchy.

Defining a communication plan

A communication plan includes the approach and processes to circulate relevant information to different resources and stakeholders across the project hierarchy. It is the formulation of planning processes to define what information should be shared with which resource. The medium has to be defined through which the information can be shared for instance emails, presentations, reports, MOM, etc. An appropriate communication strategy and planning eases the project development phase and provides clarity, visibility, and transparency to the team in terms of project status, future scope, and current condition.